


400 lux

by snugglepup



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abandonment, Abandonment Issues, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Family, Alternate Universe - Siblings, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother-Sister Relationships, Childhood Memories, Crying, Don't Have to Know Canon, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Emotionally Repressed, Family, Family Drama, Family Loss, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Grieving, Growing Up Together, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Memories, Parent Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Repression, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Death, Sibling Love, Sibling drama, Siblings, Suicidal Thoughts, Tears, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:51:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1167195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snugglepup/pseuds/snugglepup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You find her pretty fucking fast because you're all kinds of pissed off and couldn't give a shit less about pretty much bowling over anybody who gets in your way. She looks exactly how you knew she would, she's even in the same dim little corner booth she grabs whenever it's not occupied. She's dizzily giggling with two girls hanging off her and fucking christ, that's a straight up undiluted bottle of vodka she's taking heavy swigs from. You walk up to the table and when she doesn't even notice you standing there you clench a fist tight to keep your shit under control.</p><p>"Rox," you say loudly, and she doesn't even hear you. "Rox!" She raises the bottle to her lips again and somehow that's the last straw.</p><p>"ROXY FUCKING LALONDE!" you yell at the top of your lungs, and slam your fist down on the table.</p>
            </blockquote>





	400 lux

_you pick me up and take me home again_

_head out the window again_

_we're hollow like the bottles that we drain_

_you drape your wrists over the steering wheel_

_pulses can drive from here_

_we might be hollow, but we're brave_

_lorde -- 400 lux_

 

* * *

You make it all the way to 3 AM and through five unanswered phone calls and when she still doesn't show, enough is finally enough. It's not even the weekend, it's fucking Tuesday night, for once you'd been planning on actually getting some sleep, and the typical dull ache of worry is getting sharp enough that you can't just sit here tinkering with your usual shit any more. Abandoning bits of metal, tiny screws, motherboards, lines of code only half-debugged, you make the trek down eleven flights of stairs, start the car and leave your apartment behind.

Your iPod is jacked in to the speakers and after the first song is over, the shuffle function decides your night isn't shitty enough already and starts blasting Kanye. You turn to shocked stone for a moment before hitting the 'next' button and trying as hard as you can to keep from thinking about Bro. He always did have a thing for Kanye. God damn it. God damn him.

Eventually you make it to the club. She never told you where she was but it's not like you don't already know, this is her number one haunt and lately, except for your apartment once in a while, it's the only place she's been haunting at all apart from her own life. You park as close to the entrance as you can, kick over the pointless ropes that designate the line in front of the door. The bouncer yells something that's probably a threat but your ears are roaring with purpose and echoes of _See You In My Nightmare_ s and as if it wasn't bad enough getting a surprise dose of bitter memory in general, Bro had Kanye playing so much while you grew up that you remember just about all his lyrics and of all the songs to have to think about tonight, well, there sure as fuck could have been better possibilities, that's for sure. You make a mental note to wipe every trace of Kanye from every collection of music you own and wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

By the time you're actually close to the door you notice the bouncer is such a massive bruiser that it's kind of hilarious; you still can't hear anything he's saying and most people would probably be intimidated, but you're BRO's little bro and in all of your twenty two years you haven't found a single person who can make you feel threatened. The bouncer looks down at you, gets a good look at your eyes when you lower your shades and show him your scowl, and then he just steps aside and lets you bust right in. Pretty good goddamned decision on his part, gotta give the gorilla props for that.

You find her pretty fucking fast because you're all kinds of pissed off and couldn't give a shit less about pretty much bowling over anybody who gets in your way. She looks exactly how you knew she would, she's even in the same dim little corner booth she grabs whenever it's not occupied. She's dizzily giggling with two girls hanging off her and fucking christ, that's a straight up undiluted bottle of vodka she's taking heavy swigs from. You walk up to the table and when she doesn't even notice you standing there you clench a fist tight to keep your shit under control.

"Rox," you say loudly, and she doesn't even hear you. "Rox!" She raises the bottle to her lips again and somehow that's the last straw.

"ROXY FUCKING LALONDE!" you yell at the top of your lungs, and slam your fist down on the table. One of other girls screams and clutches your sister and the other slips out of the booth wide-eyed and then books it. After a few seconds of boiling silence the remaining attempted one-night stand inches away and and follows suit. Your sister's finally figured out you're here and the blearily joyful face she was wearing fifteen seconds ago has morphed into confusion and guilt.

"We're getting the fuck out of here," you say authoritatively and she only glares in offense for a second or two before her face falls and she struggles her way around the booth's table and wobbily stands. She opens her mouth to say something, closes it, and then loses her balance; it only takes you a quarter of a second to catch her by the arm and pull her back up. She cries out in pain and despite everything, even though you know that if you hadn't grabbed her she would've cracked her head on the floor, you feel like an asshole. You feel a little bit less like an asshole when you wrestle the bottle out of her other hand and almost smash it on the floor. Instead you look it over, see that a whole fucking half of the thing is gone, don't even glance at the label to see what proof it is because you really don't want to know, and force yourself to just set it down hard on the table.

"Heyyy, wha tha fuck?" she slurs. "Whassh yer goddamn problum, Di-Stri, I wash workin up a good party there," and then she processes the look on your face, follows your deliberately swerving gaze to the bottle she probably would have tried to fucking empty if you hadn't showed up, and she groans. "Kay, okay, I geddit, jus, jus lemme go, I c'n take care 'a myself." You sigh and let her go. She only manages to stumble a few feet before she tilts and smacks into the wall.

"You can take care of yourself, huh." She shoots you an angry glance but when you wrap an arm around her and tug, she still lets you walk her out of the building. The bouncer from a couple minutes ago is still there, and when he sees you he seems to try to meet your eyes again right through your shades; he shrugs and nods. Double-props to the dude for putting the general situation together and letting your previous theatrics slide. Your head's cleared up a bit and you're not furious any more so much as you are bitter, so as you pass by you nod back.

Roxy Lalonde is pretty much limp by the time you've made it through the short stretch of parking lot you have to traverse and it takes at least a minute to get her into the passenger seat and buckle the seatbelt for her. You're about to start the car when you remember your iPod and yank it out of the port. One more brush with Kanye and you'll lose your shit completely. You remember a time when literally nothing phased you, a time when you didn't know how it felt to sit with your face in your hands at your desk for two straight hours wondering what being full of splinters inside might be like for all those other 'emotionally healthy' grieving people who actually figured out how to cry. Too bad that time's long gone. Bro made sure of that.

You rev the engine and try to decide whether you can trust the ruin of a girl sitting a foot away from you to pass out first thing if you drop her off at her own place without digging more liquor from god knows how many stashed cabinets and pushing the rest of the way into alcohol poisoning territory. Yeah, right. Like hell you can trust her to do that, and she's your sister besides, you're not just going to let her rust and slowly detox all by herself, even though you know that as far as company goes you're really not a great choice.

"You can't keep doing this shit, Rox," you say as you clear the parking lot and start back toward your place. Thank fuck there's an elevator in your building, even though you don't normally use it yourself.

"Whadda you care," Roxy mumbles. "Whassit matter anyway. Whass any a this shit matter." She's slumped against the inside of the car door, face smushed against the polished glass of the window, probably smearing it with sweat but you've got bigger things to worry about than how pristine you can keep your '67 Impala. Machines aren't everything, no matter how much cash you blow on them.

"You're going to kill yourself," you reply wearily. "Drinking vodka straight from the fucking bottle? Half the fucking bottle? What's next, goddamn Everclear?" You unsafely take your eyes off the road to glance over and see her shrug. "Roxy," and just thinking about what you're saying makes you feel even more dead inside than usual, "ARE you trying to kill yourself? I'm not being a jerk. I'm dead fucking serious." You wish you could watch her face to get as much information out of her s possible, but you really don't feel like wrecking your car right now. She's quiet for a while.

"Maybe I am," she says. "Sho what if I was tryin a get dead. S'not like anybody gives a shit." There's probably more she wanted to say, but then you hear the passenger side window rolling down and feel the night wind rush in and swirl against your skin. There's nowhere to stop yet but all you hear is labored breathing for the moment, so you grip the wheel hard, kick the Impala right over the speed limit, and hope to hell you don't run into any stray bits of the law before you get where you're going.

"I give a shit, Rox. That ought to be obvious tonight if it wasn't before, which it would have been if you'd been paying attention instead of trying to turn yourself into an encore of Mom." You're cruising not quite toward your place so much as toward a big park nearby that's always empty at night apart from a the occasional drugged-out stray and the usual array of homeless people desperately trying to hold on to whatever slivers of their lives that they can. That depressing shit aside, the point is there's always parking after ten, and for whatever reason there's no signs anywhere saying you can't park there in the middle of the night, so the worst any fuzz can do is harass you and then move on to finding poor people and black kids to fuck over. Man, there's another thing you didn't really want on your mind tonight.

"DON YOU FUCKIN TALK AB'T MOM!" she screams, and she slams her elbow against the inside of the car door, which might matter if she wasn't so obliterated that it's really more like a sad little thump. "You got NO righg to be shayin jack shit abou' MOM!" She slides back in the seat, head rolling. The general idea here is to get the car parked, at the park, before she's puking out the window, which could pretty much start happening any second now. "MOM wasn' tryin'a do NOTHIN 'cept get the PAIN to shtop! You gonna bring Mom up, how 'bout you try'n eshplain whah happ'n'd with FUCKIN' DAVE!" Your gut lurches and you slam on the brakes way too hard, slinging your sister back and forth against her seatbelt and hurling your shades off your face and onto the dash. If she hadn't just said what she said you might be worried you gave her whiplash. You will yourself to stop shaking with rage and keep trying to get through to her somehow. At least you finally made it to the edge of the park.

"Shut the fuck up for one second, okay? You're a fucking alcoholic and you're going to kill yourself one way or another and I'm not goddamned okay with that, and you. Don't. Get. To. Say. SHIT. About. Fucking. Bro. You got that? We both know exactly what happened to Mom and we both know exactly what Bro did and those things are NOT the fucking same." Now that the car's parked you're meeting her liquor-dulled violet eyes and she's meeting the blazing orange of yours. At least you've got one thing in common, you both got born with irises that most people think are colored contacts. She opens her mouth to strike back or something and then, just as abruptly as you knew it would happen, she's got her head out the window messily emptying a stomach that you bet had more ethanol in it than food. Christ, for all you know she's got alcohol poisoning right now and you should have been driving to a hospital and not a huge pitch-black patch of grass and dead trees. You think it's not that bad, you've been watching for the major signs, but hell, who knows? Even after she's done puking she can't seem to stop retching and the noise is awful and you spend long stretched-out minutes lying back in the driver's seat with your eyes closed and Kanye rapping pain and death in your head and one hand pressed almost involuntarily over your face and the other reaching across the car and grasping one of hers. You're pissed, you're shattered, you're fucked up, half of you wants to slap her in the fucking face for all the shit she's put you through, but in the end she's still your sister, she's still Roxy, your Rox, and you can't just sit there listening to her suffer without at least trying to do something to help, although you're not sure if she even notices.

Finally she's ejected the last strings of bile and gone through the last few dry heaves and she's gasping for breath and then she's wiped her mouth off by stretching up the highest part of her low-cut dress and right when you're ready for the fighting to pick back up she squeezes your hand about as hard as you think she can right now and starts to cry.

"I mish her," she says, and it's kind of funny how you mirror each other in this moment, your right hand clasped around her left, your left hand covering a face that's totally blank anyway and her right hand catching tears and mucous. "I missh her sho fuckin bad, Dirk, I'm shorry, s-sorry, it's jusht not FAIR, why'd they have to go 'n do that to us, I don' unnerstand, why din't she shtop? Why'd she gotta go 'n do what I been doin? Why'd she jusht keep goin 'til there washn't nothin left?" You find yourself thinking about that crying thing again. You still wonder what it must be like to just crack and let the pain out like that. Bro never cried either, not one time, not until that one night, that night you heard muffled sobs through his bedroom door at 2 AM after you woke up from a bad dream and were on your way back from the kitchen with a glass of apple juice. You stood there, hearing the hardest motherfucker on the planet breaking down, you stood there for ten minutes and it still didn't stop, and you tried to open the door but for some reason you just couldn't make your hand turn the knob and finally you went back to your room, lying awake almost until dawn. You still lie awake at night sometimes, wondering what might have happened if you'd been able to open that door, if maybe things would have been different. You think you'll be wondering that for the rest of your life.

"I don't know either," you say, and the holes in your heart somehow bore even deeper. "You know, Mom always loved you the most," and you have absolutely no clue why in the goddamned fucking hell it came out of your mouth but you're instantly aware that letting that sentence escape your fucking dumbass brain is now somewhere high on the list of the top five worst things you've ever done, and that includes the time you fucked up your form and shanked Bro half to death once when he was teaching you how to swordfight. Not like it mattered in the long run, because a couple years later he took the other half of the life he had left and got rid of it himself.

"FUCK you," Roxy sobs, "FUCK you, the fuck you had to shay that for, nob'dy hadda fuckin say it, we all jus' knew, jus' like how you'n Dave were alwizz doin yer own shtupid crap an' he musta knew how bad I l-loved 'im too, but noooooooooo, was alwaysh all abou' fuckin DI-STRI, you try'n shay I'm turnin inna Mom, well you 'n him been the shame two shtone-col' sonna bishes all our GODDAMN lives!"

"Fuck," that's all you manage to get out, low and croaking and so hollow that it seems to echo, just that one word, and then she's wiped the tears from her eyes and she's staring at you and she looks scared for some reason, like she's seeing something horribly wrong.

"Keep shayin I'ma kill my damn self, y'know what, Dirk fuckin Shtrider, you got the shame look in yer eyes Dave had the lasht time I ever saw the shtupid bassterd." You have no idea how to respond to this. You have no idea how to respond to her. You have no idea how your life fell apart so hard and so fast. You have no idea. You have no idea. Dirk Strider is not present for this exchange. Dirk Strider is in the leather of the car seat, Dirk Strider is in the sound of sprinklers struggling to keep yellowed grass green, Dirk Strider is in the distinctive smell of an old car kept alive maybe too long, Dirk Strider has left the building, Dirk Strider does not need to be here. Dirk Strider does not really need to be anywhere at all. Dirk Strider --

"HEY!" Rox's got a hand on your shoulder and she's shoving you back and forth, like she's trying to shake something loose. "FUCKIN SHAY SOMETHIN 'FORE I CALL A GODDAMN SHUISHIDE HO'LINE! I WAKE UP TOMORROW 'N YER GONE TOO I SHWEAR TO GAWD I'MA FOLLOW ALL THREE A YOU MOTHERFUCKERS FIRS' CHANSH A GET!" You unbuckle your seatbelt and start to open the car door. You don't really even know why, or where you're planning to go. Maybe you really should just... leave. Bro left and Bro was the best guy on the planet, Bro always knew the right thing to do. Everything you see is sort of glazed over like your shades are dirty even though your shades are still lying on the other side of the steering wheel. Except she's right. She means it. You can't go. It's not allowed. It's not okay to leave the only person left in the world that matters all by herself. She needs you. She lost her Mom and even if he never had a fucking clue how to take care of somebody, even if he did love you more, she lost Bro too. She needs you.

Maybe you need her, too.

You're so tired, you're reeling like you're just as drunk as she is or maybe more, but you shut the car door. Who knew tonight was going to be the night the last sane bits of the world all went to hell. Speaking of the world, the whole thing is tilting and twisting off to the side, and then your head is pressed against something soft and warm. You feel fingers running through your hair, you feel... what do you feel? Something's wet on your face; you slowly realize you've fallen over and you're lying on your sister's thighs. She must still be crying because your face is definitely wet, except you don't feel the impact of teardrops, so you're not really clear on the details of the situation.

"Dirrrrrk," she says, "Oh, Dirk, fuck, no," and you don't have a clue what she's talking about, "It'sh okay, oh god, pleash, shay somethin, jusht talk to me." Something weird is going on in your chest, like your muscles are spasming or something, maybe you're having a heart attack for some reason, who knows, at this point almost nothing would surprise you. And then it's in your throat, what the shit is this, did you just get the hiccups? Talk about inappropriate timing. "Diiiiirk... pleashe... don' be him anymore, don' keep tryin' to be Dave, don' do wh' he did, I'll get be'err, I won' drink anymore, I'll go to r-rehab or, I'll do wh'ever you wan', jus' don' go where he wen', don' LEAVE me."

"Hey, Rox," you say, feeling something strange; you think that maybe it's clarity. You always thought you saw the world so clearly, but why would a guy like that spend his life hiding behind shades, hiding in machines and puppets, always working, always alone? "Roxy, I love you." She freezes up for a second, waiting. "If you promise you'll never go, then I guess... I guess I won't go either." You can sort of see part of her face in your peripheral vision, but you can't make out her expression. You're making sounds that you aren't trying to and your cheeks are totally streaked with this same unidentifiable liquid.

She's saying something again but you can't quite make it out, you're suspended between warmth and the feeling of fingernails moving on your scalp, you're lost and you're drifting and everything hurts but the pain is changing somehow, it's becoming something new. You think maybe you're falling asleep. You think you hear your poor, sweet, broken, wasted Roxy telling you something important, but you're still slipping, falling, and maybe it's all just a dream, maybe this whole night didn't even happen. You think she's saying something about love and about family and how blood doesn't matter and you'll always be her fucked up splintered Dirk and she'll always be your Rox with her secrets and her voided soul and the two of you can stay, you can stay together, nobody else has to leave. Saying that maybe you're both abandoned, hollow, but you're also brave, you're trying as hard as you can and Mom and Bro might have run off to someplace you can't follow but the two of you can keep each other, that nobody else has to go away.

You look up, beyond the vague but vivid color of moving lips, beyond Dave Strider and Rose Lalonde, you look up and through eyes that are blurry and soaked you see the weathered ceiling of your Bro's old car, the wear, the flawed and precious texture of it, and you know that on the other side of that thin and tired wall is an endless sea of matte black and bright points that are only the lingering lights of long-dead stars, and you realize that maybe she's right.

Maybe you're scared, maybe it hurts, maybe the scars won't ever fade away, but nobody else is going to leave. Nobody, and the last sounds you hear before you really do fall asleep in your sister's lap come from deep inside your head. They're the voice of a woman reading aloud from bedtime stories she wrote by herself, and the hymn of hands scratching vinyl on a turntable a long, long time ago.


End file.
